Giggling Squid - Sevenoaks — Restaurant in Sevenoaks

Recently went there for lunch after having enjoyed two previous visits, only to find the service from the staff an absolute nightmare! After walking around Sevenoaks for an hour or two my wife (and four week old baby) and I decided to have lunch there. We chose to eat inside as it was quiet with few other customers and it was a little chilly outside. After ordering our food, my wife moments later needed to quickly disappear to the toilet to feed the baby, so I asked the waitress to hold off placing the order with the chef, only to find the food arrive not five minutes later, which then sat on the table getting cold whilst waiting for.my wife to return. I asked the staff several times to please return the food to the kitchen to keep it warm but they flatly refused! Upon my wifes return it was clear to see that our little one was a touch disgruntled, so to not upset the fellow diners I suggested we move outside to not upset others dining. I asked the staff if we could possibly move to a table outside, to which they just shrugged their shoulders and carried on doing what they were doing. It was then left to me to walk backwards and forwards several times moving our food myself whilst they looked on ambievilant! An absolute disgrace, then to make matters worse, I then called the restaurant three times to speak with a manager only to be told he/she was unavailable but was told that they would get back to me soon!

In short, this is another one of these big chain restaurants that really don't care one iota about their reputation as regular customers are not a priority to them!

I/we will never return purely for the lack of customer service provided from the staff on this occasion. We live locally to this restaurant and it appears that others in our area have also experienced the same issue.

Such a shame as the foods pretty good but the service (if you can call it that) was atrocious!

I would not...

This place is clearly just a business with no passion for thai food.

I only had a takeaway but when i say only it cost the best part of £50 for really not alot and not a free prawn cracker in sight because like i said this is business right? The Thai lady's eyes lit up when i pulled notes from my wallet , said "ahh cash" so i replied "i see you like cash" does that mean i get free prawn crackers?"..."haha" she replied (i gathered that meant no). So from the off it was obvious this place is just a business as i said. I had turned up 15 minutes before i was asked and my food was already sitting in a bag on the side which isn't great. On arriving home i started to unpack,first the COLESLAW?? i didnt order coleslaw? what the hell is this? oh hang on there is maybe 4 strips of papaya in there so does that mean by EU regulations that it is infact a Papaya salad and not COLESLAW!! Seriously ive never even seen carrot in a papaya salad let alone that much but as i said this is a business and i can tell you carrot is FAR cheaper than fresh papaya, i know because i make it all the time. Ok so the duck rolls , fish cakes,and chicken pah thai were all very standard and more on the side of dry than fresh (it didn't get on the side 15 mins before my due arrival by accident). Prawn red curry....what a let down and again i think 3 prawns is just an EU regulation and this business is making the most of it,it was a soup at best and very disappointing. Would i go back?...no Would i recommend ?....no

Take a tip as a business ...a free prawn cracker can go a long way but it cant turn coleslaw into...

WARNING! AVOID, WAS SERVED MEAT AS A VEGETARIAN!!

I ate here last month on 09.09.24 and ordered a vegetable Thai green curry. Something obviously went wrong in the kitchen and I was brought out a chicken one. Because the chicken was hidden in the sauce, I ate a few bites before realising, which was a horrible experience!!! Luckily this did not make me ill but it makes me concerned from a contamination point of view for those with allergies that there is not enough care and attention in giving the customer the correct dish! I told the waiter and they then brought me the correct dish, however, I was only offered minimal apologies and no compensation whatsoever despite this being a very negative experience.

As I had been a fan of GS previously, I decided to just let it go at the time. However, later in the same month after eating at the Maidstone Giggling Squid Branch, one of our party came down with food poisoning! Therefore, I thought after two serious incidents in a row it was important to write my review to warn customers to avoid eating at giggling squid!!! Furthermore, no compensation was offered for the food poisoning at Maidstone, therefore I won't bother reporting being served meat as a vegetarian as I'm sure they won't take any actions to resolve this!! Avoid and eat elsewhere!!!

Note- if a manager is reading this and genuinely wants to resolve the situation, please do feel free to reach out and I will update my review to accurately reflect any actions taken to resolve...